50 mindful October 2013
community
Everyone knows this
job gets to you, says
Sergeant Deborah
Case. But you can’t act
like it. At the police
academy they talk
about stress-reduc-
tion strategies for
maybe 15 minutes.
“We deny ourselves
the experience of be-
ing human,” she says.
“It’s going to leach out
somewhere.”
were members of the hostage-negotiating team, the
K-9 team, and a team that focuses on calls involv-
ing mental health problems. There were civilian
employees of the police depa rtment, too.
“ We have the best and the brightest in here,” he
said.
Goerling hopes that these 24 officers will spread
the word, and that, as time goes on, the whole force
(121 sworn officers and 41 professional staff) can go
through Rogers’ MBSR class.
Rogers has had to adjust his teaching for the
audience. He tries to use the la ng uage of cops—for-
get Buddhist and Sanskrit terms—sprinkling his
discussion with terms like “tactical” and “strategy”
and “situational awareness.”
The typical MBSR lingo, about being “present in
the moment,” wasn’t necessarily going to resonate
here. Instead, he tells them, “Pay attention to what ’s
happening a round you. Notice the thoughts....”
Language choices aside, the upshot of mindful-
ness training is to help police decrease reactivity
and increase thoughtful responsivity; to be assertive
rather than aggressive. Without a doubt, this is the
heart of good police work. Officers with these skills
will be better able to relate to the wife who doesn’t
want her abusive husba nd arrested, better able to
communicate and think clea rly under stress. In a nut-
shell: better able to help the people in their communi-
ties whom they have sworn to serve and protect.
To get the message through to police, Rogers
takes care to liken this mental fitness work to the
physical fitness activities that law-enforcement
culture has long embraced. “Over time, the shape
and size of the brain is changing,” he tells the officers.
“ You’re reshaping how the mind works, just like
you’re reshaping the body.”
Every week Rogers takes the class through a 30-
to 40-minute body-scan meditation. When you get
dist racted, he tells them, just notice that, without
judgment. Then bring your thoughts back to the body.
“Each time you do that, that’s a rep,” he says. At one
point in class, he flexes his arm like he’s doing bicep
curls. Practicing mindfulness, he says, is like build-
ing “muscle memory. It’s like doing reps.”
All this is great conceptually. But as Slade points
out, you’re asking this of police officers. As he and
the others lie down in Rogers’ studio with their eyes
closed, he can’t help thinking, “Anybody can burst in
that door and take full advantage of us. Part of me is
saying, you’ve got to stay on high alert because you
never know. ...”
Out on the street, he adds, “My life depends on it.”
Goerling says that’s called “hypervigilance.”
And it’s not healthy, it’s not sustainable, and it’s not
protective.
The mindfulness class “isn’t about being rela xed,”
he says. “It isn’t about eliminating stress. It’s about
being aware of what stress is doing and mitigating
its impact.”
Like the others, Officer Eric Russell, the tattooed
former Marine sniper, came to the class with a dose
of skepticism. The homework alone requires that
something ’s got to give—like sacrificing a n hour at
the gym, for instance. “It really is a big investment,”
he says. “A blind investment.”
Still, he’s determined to be open-minded. If
there’s something that will give him an edge out
on the streets, then he’s all for it. He thinks about
what he has to juggle every time he gets in his police
car. There’s an earpiece where he hears the voice
of the dispatcher. There’s a police radio in the car,
which may or may not be tuned to the same channel.
There’s a computer screen that spits out information
about calls a nd suspects. Then there’s the regula r
car radio, which he can tune to his favorite radio
station. And then there’s the driving, sometimes
with lights a nd sirens.
“As officers, we spend so much time fine-tuning
this craft of multitasking,” he says. The mindfulness
class seems to be asking him to do just the opposite:
to “sit here and focus on one concept.”
He pauses for a moment, thinking further about